Chatham taxpayers spend $1,100 on man who owed $220

Chatham County taxpayers are spending at least $85 million on an expanded jail, along with millions more to hire additional guards and other personnel.

The major reason is to reduce overcrowding.

But instead of forcing taxpayers to cough up more money to lock people up, authorities should do a better job of deciding who winds up behind bars -- and for how long.

Case in point:

Earlier this week, a jail inmate appeared before Recorder's Court Judge Claire Cornwell-Williams. His crime? Failure to pay $220 in fines.

Violators shouldn't be able to walk away scot-free from court-ordered penalities. Yet this scofflaw spent 22 days in the county lockup. That's not cheap. It costs roughly $50 per day to keep someone in jail. That meant county taxpayers spent $1,100 to keep this individual off the street.

The judge properly released the man, sentencing him to time served. But that leaves bigger questions.

Why was someone who owed $220 kept for more than three weeks in jail?

How many more inmates just like him are sitting in the jail right now?

Instead of building bigger and more expensive jails to cut overcrowding, why not do a better job of deciding who gets locked up and exploring other sentences for non-violent offenders?

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The more Tom Barton writes, the more he proves what an idiot he is. He doesn't have any suggests to find a better why to penalize people who don't pay their fines, yet writes about the cost to keep them in jail. What does he want? Barton needs to go. I've never once seen anything he has written about to be beneficial or relevant. SMN needs to get some really good investigative reporters. Leslie Conn was the ONLY investigative reporter SMN has seen for as long as I can remember. Who wants to read some stupid BS by the likes of Barton and all the other SMN reporters? Susan Catron, if you have an ounce of ability to be a reporter and do some investigative reporting, you need to step up to the plate and do it and get rid of the worthless weight weighing down SMN and save the cost of their salaries. SMN and the parent company can surely benefit from that considering how they are sinking fast.

I look back and think of the great reporting staff, Conn, of course, but way back when Coffey, Rossiter, and others had the realm. You had journalists and actual reporters back then who competed on stories, and wrote with elegance, however, The Lady is dead. Now, one sided editorials, stories, and AP/UP canned filler.

not a hard news story. Like you, Tom is entitled to free speech. Maybe he thinks if he writes the facts the reader can figure something out for himself. And, by the way, a few years back Bret Bell and Tuck Thompson wrote a real investigative reporting series on some problems in Vidalia. Think they got sued, but won. Bob Sechler used to dig fairly deep. But I agree, it ain't happening today. At least Tom gives us information no one else does and I for one appreciate it.